I am feeling very proud of myself right now. I’ve been working on my new facebook page Autism’s Love: Making Connections and launched it 4 days ago. My dream is to connect with special needs individuals and communities from around the world. I hope my page will be a fun and informative place to visit and share resources. I don’t know about you, but sometimes I get caught up in my own little world, always focusing on the tasks at hand. It’s good to take out time to see what is going on in other parts of the world and to see how others are dealing with their individual special needs. I love learning about different kinds of resources. Diversity is key for me. I’ve always loved learning about people and their cultures and now I’ve created an avenue personally connection to me to do so.

Welcome to my new obsession. 🙂 I hope my new page enlightens and inspires you.

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Writing about myself is one of the hardest things I’ve ever tried to do. Yet I can’t stop trying. I need to get my words out, if for no one other than myself. I get so frustrated when reading others blogs. I love to read them and enjoy the content of their posts, but I find myself getting lost in envy over their fluidity of total expression. I wonder, do they struggle like I do? Do they sit at a little wooden desk and fret for countless days, months and hours…agonizing over every word, writing and re-writing…walking away and returning? Whenever I’m not in front of my computer I feel like I am about to burst at the seems. There is so much that wants to come out. Why is it so hard?!

Just when I think that I’ve figured it all out and am ready to open up the flood gates I go dry again. Where is inspiration? Isn’t it enough to live the story that I want to tell? My words feel emotionless and sterile. Yes, that would best describe it. Perhaps I’m trying to hard. Perhaps it just me and my disconnection to life. My mind won’t allow me to feel the fullness of my emotions. I guess it would be too much. Maybe I should just close my eyes and breathe… All I can see are words floating around in space…taunting me…haunting me. Memories flash before my eyes, yet I still feel nothing. I think I want to cry and scream, but I can’t. There’s nothing there…

I looked into the mirror once and saw a women mentally bludgeoned. I’ve been violated in every possible way. My spirit battered, broken and left for dead. My girth increasing and decreasing…increasing and decreasing…increasing and decreasing… I am OBESE!! I am UGLY!! I am UNWANTED!! I am UNLOVABLE!! There’s no escape. I’m going crazy, I need to release. Please God help me!!!!

I can walk through a house of mirrors and never see my own reflection. Conditioned to ignore the obvious. I live an illusion. I always have. Where there should have been love…there was none. Where there should have been protection…there was none. Where there should have been comfort…there was none. Where there should have been laughter, joy, fun, adventure…there was none. I have been imprisoned by life, my parents, my conditions and even my own mind… Flawed from head to toe…inside and out. I am queen of the misfits…discarded like a broke Christmas ornament. I want to see beauty, but I can’t. I know beauty lives inside. I want to be beautiful on the outside. I can’t see myself because I don’t want to. I don’t want to face the ugly truth. My friends, they tell me I’m beautiful, but they are just being kind.

I crawl out of my hole and begin to pick up the pieces. I try to make sense of what’s left of my life. I put on the face of strength for my child. I don’t want him to see me broken even though he already knows that I am. You see, he knows first hand the pain that is mine. When he was a toddler we used to visit my parents on the weekends. It would take most of the day for me to manage the thought… Hours of crying and vomiting and then slowing getting ready to face the beast. My dad, never satisfied, would always criticize me. One day it had gotten so bad that my precious little one ran over to me, jumped onto my lap and wrapped his arms around my neck…screaming and crying. He turned to look at my dad as if to say…leave my mommy alone. I hugged and kissed him and told him it was okay. We went home. There were many occasions like this, but I dare not miss a weekend. My parents insisted that we break bread together every Saturday. My mother still presenting the face of perfection. Still perpetuating the lie. Will it ever stop?

My parents are gone now. Would it be wrong for me to say that I am grateful? Should I feel guilty for feeling this way? My son can since that I am still haunted by my past. It is on those days that he hugs me and rubs my face to ensure me that it’s okay. I look at him in think how precious he is. He is perfect. He will never know the beatings, ridicule, disconnection, blame and hate that I endured. If only I too had been so precious to my parents.

I relish the joy and peace that we have in our home. My son will never have to question if he is loved. He will never feel the pain I felt. I thank God for that. I thank God that he made me strong enough to break the curse. I thank God for the blessing of my son and the gift of motherhood. Thank you God for showing me what parenting should be… How love should feel… What peace is…

It is because of my love for my son and my quest for healing that I take this journey. I want my son to have the absolute best of me. I want to be free. Not stuffing my pain, but releasing and letting it go…completely. That is my goal. And I will achieve this even if it takes me one letter at a time…

“You find yourself at the center of a huge debate. You’re the new black, the hot topic, part of a growing epidemic, an oft-cited statistic that grows at alarming rates or not at all, depending on who is doing the reporting. You’re living the thing most families fear. You’re the brave one, the resilient one, the courageous one, the one doing something she or he (but mostly she) says she can’t imagine herself doing, performing some super feat of parenting, loving with super patience or super understanding or super tolerance while she races home to a child that skips up the path of maturation and competence and independence and connection with nary a nudge from anyone.”

My comment to your post 🙂

Kyra 5.0, your words are a beautiful homage to parenting a child on the autism spectrum or having other special needs.

I re-read your post several times and had a little difficulty processing it. At first I thought how bold to brag on one’s self… Truth of the matter, parents need to be able to toot their own horns sometimes.

I work diligently with my son, but only see it as a labor of love. I don’t think of myself as a hero or supermom or feel that I am particularly brave or resilient. I am who I am and I do what I do because I love who I love with all that I have. And that’s it.

There are many of us who go through life not giving any thought to what we do everyday. It takes wonderful people like you, who bring us back to the level and make us feel like we are doing something right. Thank you for writing such a beautiful tribute to all of us who spend our days and night loving and raising our precious autist/aspie kids.

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I had a lovely time on the phone with my cousin this morning. We joked about the little things couples do to feel connected…things that add interest and spice to a relationship. She and her husband certainly know what works for them, after all, they are happily married and have been for almost 30 years. They’re the poster child for the quintessential partnership that I think most couples intend to have but seldom achieve.

So how do I explain to her what relationships are really like for me?

How do I convey the level of discomfort I feel when having to share my space for long periods of time. I can hardly adapt to having overnight guests let alone sharing my space with someone for the rest of my life. Okay…perhaps not the rest of my life, but not even for the next couple years. It’s not the same as living with your children. They are a part of you and innately have the ability to understand you, to learn your likes and dislikes as they develop their own. There is a bond between mother and child that space and time cannot touch. It’s totally different when taking on an outsider, your partner, who is not as connected and has no clue about your needs or you not knowing how to convey those needs. How would I have explained to my husband that I needed to have a separate bedroom or my real desire was to have him as a neighbor? I did not realize these things until after marriage.

Should I be completely honest and say how much I hated being married, not just to my husband, but in general? How I hated almost every aspect of marriage, pretending to be happy while cohabitating with someone else, always being around people at work and at home. It would have been so much better if I had my own space. It was very stressful trying to cope with endless social events between both families which were excruciating at best. Those who knew me well noted the number of gatherings we hosted and realized it was highly unusual for me. They’d often point out my obvious discomfort. I was exhausted and there was no refuge outside of sleep which was often interrupted by husband’s carnal needs. I eventually retreated from husband and friends. I know they felt abandoned and I am sorry for that, but I had nothing left to give. I needed solitude.

As for something special, I pretended to love the flowers that he bought because it made him feel like he was doing something special. He could not understand that I hated cut flowers. They’d just die and stink and I ended up with a surplus of vases stuffed into a back cabinet. I guess he thought I liked flowers because other women like them. That’s as silly as thinking all females like pink. Why? Is it because someone out there made pink the universal color for femininity? Just for the record…I hate pink too.

I’m not sure what to do to appease my distain for romantic relationships and doing the little things to spice them up. I cannot explain how agonizingly awkward it is to hold hands or to snuggle which I had never done prior to marriage and had no clue how to do. This was never a suggestion of mine. But I would try to appease my husband when he requested snuggle time. Do I put my head on his shoulder or his chest or perhaps on his arm? Where do I put my arms? Should my arm go under me or in between us? The other arm feels weird. I don’t like the feel of his arm around my shoulder or the sound of our clothes rubbing together. Physical romance is far from my mind. There is nothing comforting about this exchange. I am frustrated and my hands are balling into fists. I can’t breathe…we’re too close. I excused myself and went into the living room. He follows me and wants to sit next to me and watch TV. There’s no escape. I just want to be alone and to read my book.

What do you need to be your best in a relationship?

There are many books, magazine, movies, blogs and the like addressing this subject. I’m not sure if these things are a help or a hindrance. My idea of the perfect relationship is based on having a cohesive cerebral existence with my partner and a willingness to listen to each other’s needs. It is finding a way to communicate those needs effectively and respectively in a language that each partner can understand. Our love, communication, commitment and even sex should extend beyond the boundaries of flesh. Perhaps that is why so many of us need other things to make our relationships feel special. We do not understand the deeper levels of connection. Perhaps we are merely filling a void with ritualized practices deemed necessary because they can creating finely woven threads of purposeful colonization between partners, but on the other hand, can imploding into an emotional vortex contingent upon one’s perception and reception of such carefully orchestrated events.

Obviously I don’t have the answers to many of these questions, but I do have a better understanding of my needs and what I have to give. Who knows, maybe someday I’ll be willing to try it again. But don’t get your hopes up dear cousin. I suspect you may already have some prospects in mind. Just know that I am not ready, but the possibilities are there.

I will no longer give into the occasional 10 minutes of awkward. Instead I will continue to improve my ability to communicate my needs and an ability to listen to the needs of others. And hopefully I can have that special relationship where we both find it important enough to develop creative ways to fulfill those needs.

My blog's about my life experiences with Asperger's Syndrome and going into the world of autism in my point of view. Looking to inspire and help others to understand autism better along with giving other families of kids and adults with autism hope.

30 Days of Autism is a project designed to promote social understanding, civil rights, fight stigma, and increase understanding and acceptance for those who process and experience the world differently.